


Sea-Salt Stories

by TooManyIdeas (XionKuriyama)



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, One Shot Collection, Romance, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-01
Updated: 2015-02-24
Packaged: 2019-08-06 13:22:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 19,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16388504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XionKuriyama/pseuds/TooManyIdeas
Summary: They say the worlds share one sky, but they also share a special trio of friends. My AkuRokuShi short story dump from my old days on FFN.





	1. Introduction and The Other Football (Or, That Weird Super Bowl Special)

**Author's Note:**

> This stuff is all from years ago, read at your own risk.

They say the worlds share one sky. That’s true. We are one universe. What they don’t tell you is that there is something else the worlds share. What is that, you may ask? Well, we share stories for one thing. That’s something. But there is something else, too.

There is a trio of Nobodies. One lost his heart long ago, the other two don’t remember when they had one. One is a fire-wielding assassin with a personality as hot as the flames he throws. One is a clueless boy who doesn’t understand much, but is proficient at hitting things with a giant key and is getting good at being a friend. One is a beautiful, shy girl who can be gullible at times, but is kind and honest. In most situations, this would be terrible chemistry. However, they share an unbreakable bond. This might have something to do with their shared obsession with sea-salt ice cream, but it could also be something more.

These are the memories of the adventures that caused the worlds to share more than a sky. These are the stories of a group of friends trying to find their way in that little thing called life. These are the tales of a beautiful friendship, perhaps even a family.

These are the sea-salt stories.

0=0=0=0=0=0

“Axel, what’s the Super Bowl?”

No one knows how Roxas came across a reference to a uniquely American sports event. His mission that day had been to Disneyville, which of course was a very patriotic place at least three times a year, so maybe that was the cause.

Whatever the cause, it was a very fortuitous coincidence that Axel had been the only person in Radiant Gardens who was into the sport when he was a Somebody. Probably something to do with the fact that it mostly involves large, muscled men slamming into each other with great force. That sort of thing had appealed to Lea.

Axel looked at his friend. “Do you know what football is?”  
“Yeah, you said Xaldin is constantly using your TV to watch it.”  
“The other football.”  
“There’s another football?”  
“That reaction brings me back…”

Axel bit off the last chunk of his ice cream and stood up. “Xi, do you like sports?”  
Xion shrugged. “I don’t know. All I really know about sports is from that goat in Olympus Coliseum. And I hate that place.”  
“One of these days, I’m going to take that goat’s head off with my chakrams,” Axel muttered under his breath. “Come on, let’s RTC. Bring your ice cream. I’ve got something to show you.”

0=0=0=0=0=0

Junk food was not common in Organization XIII. When you have to go out and fight creatures that never waste a moment that could be spent trying to kill you in various ways _every day_ , you get with the necessary diet quickly. This is called ‘natural selection’. However, Demyx occasionally managed to sneak the stuff in, and so, Axel shamelessly raided his junk stash.

This was how it came to pass that the sea-salt trio was sitting in Axel’s room (it had the only real television in the Organization), watching American football while stuffing their faces with chips. The Flurry of Dancing Flames had even acquired a pack of football-shaped sugar cookies, which he was saving for when someone won. Axel was sitting on the bed with a bag of plain chips, while the Keybearers sat next to each other on the floor, wrapped in a blanket (it looked just as cute as it sounds) and sharing a gigantic bag of salt-and-vinegar chips.

Axel wasn’t rooting for any side in particular. He hadn’t watched the sport in years, so he had no idea who was worthy of fandom. He was just in it for the muscular men hitting each other. Roxas seemed to be bouncing back and forth between the two teams, rooting mostly for whoever was winning at that moment (it was a close game). Xion had no clue what was going on, but soon decided that football was a sport she was _definitely not_ suited for. She stuck around for the junk food—again, it wasn’t common, and the sight of it gave her cravings.

On the screen, an impressive tackle occurred. Roxas’ eyes went wide. “That was awesome!”  
Xion jumped. “Awesome? It looked like it hurt a lot to me.”  
Axel laughed. “It’s official—among teenage Keybearing Nobodies, sports are more popular with boys than girls. That, my Keybearers, is called a focus group.”  
Xion turned her head. “Don’t people ever get injured playing this game?”  
“Yes, yes they do. It actually happens a lot. A lot of people don’t even make it to professional league because they broke something important practicing for professional league.”  
The girl shuddered and turned back to the screen. “I think I’ll stick to poker. I’ll always lose against Luxord, but at least I won’t get actually hurt.”

As cute as this scene was, there wasn’t much of a story at this point. That makes it lucky for us that there was a knock on the door a few minutes later. Axel got up to see who it was.

It was Demyx. “Have you seen my junk food? I couldn’t find it.”  
Axel facepalmed. He may have neglected to inform Demyx of his raid. “We’re eating it right now, while watching football. American football.”  
“You’re WHAT?”  
“There wasn’t anything else available. I promise I’ll get you a new stash tomorrow.”  
Demyx pouted. “…Are Roxas and Xion with you?””  
“Yeah, why?”  
“…Mind if I join in? Just for the snacks, you know.”

And thus, Demyx started watching the game with the trio. He took two bags all for himself, but the Keybearers decided it was only fair, since it was technically his food. Demyx, of course, hadn’t watched this sport before either, and his reaction was about the same as Xion’s. The Bright Shadow and the Melodious Nocturne mostly bonded together with a conversation on the finer points of matching lyrics with music—Xion’s singing was only getting better, and Demyx wanted to be the band sitar player.

The game was lulling at this point, and Axel decided to start talking football trivia. “Can any of you guess what that football is made of?”  
The Keybearers shook their heads. “No fair!” Demyx said. “We’ve never watched this game before, remember?”  
Axel smiled. “It’s made out of leather now, but it used to be made out of pigskin.”  
Xion pulled back in disgust. “They used to be made out of _pigs?_ The poor pigs!”  
“It really isn’t any different from when you eat a hot dog, Xi.”  
“Of course it’s different! At least I don’t throw it around and run all over it. And I’m vegetarian anyway, remember?”  
“…Do you know what leather is made of?”  
“No.”  
“Actually, knowing you, you probably don’t want to know…”

Soon, there was another knock on the door. It was none other than Saix.

The blue-haired Nobody took a look at the room. “I wasn’t informed that you were converting your room into Axel’s Home for Chronic Slackers.”  
“I told you, Saix, there is such a thing as time when work isn’t happening.”  
Saix just sighed in response. “What are you doing?”  
“Introducing the Keybearers to football. American football.”  
“I don’t think that is a healthy sport for them to play.”  
“Not playing, just watching. It’s the Super Bowl today, apparently. Want to join in?”  
“Axel, it’s a stupid sport where men overcompensating for their low intelligence run into each other at high speeds and then beat each other to the ground. Why would I _ever_ want to watch it played?”

In a bold move, Axel forcibly pulled Saix into the room. The Luna Diviner _actually_ rolled his eyes this time, but he was watching the television. A very close touchdown played out on the screen, ending the game in a victory for the team who pulled it off. Roxas cheered and grabbed the box of sugar cookies—he’d been staring at them longingly all game, as had Xion and Demyx.

Saix snorted. “The other team has terrible strategy. They had the perfect chance to tackle the quarterback and they let him go. I would make them go through training again.”

Axel just grinned.


	2. Girls are Scary

The wind was annoying for several reasons. It blew in Xion’s face, forcing her to close her eyes. It made her cold, and Twilight Town was already a very cold environment in February. It made the flying Heartless a little more agile.

But the main reason the wind was so aggravating to Xion was that it kept blowing her hood down.

In retrospect, letting Demyx cut her hair had not been the smartest move. The haircut wasn’t _horrible,_ but it was certainly embarrassing, and Xion wanted to keep her hood up as long as possible, to give it a chance to grow back in. Let the locals be suspicious—they were wary of her from the cult-like outfit already, and a little privacy never hurt.

But the wind kept blowing the thing down, forcing her to pull it back up, only for it to fall down again a few seconds later. This was a major design flaw in the uniform, left unnoticed and unfixed because the Organization was usually given such a wide berth that they could keep their hoods down without being noticed anyway. When they did have to have their hoods up, there usually wasn’t enough wind to cause any real problems.

She didn’t know how to fix the problem. Her current strategy was to ignore it as long as possible and hope the wind stopped soon, flipping it back up whenever it was blown down. But that wasn’t really ignoring. It was getting on her nerves more and more each time the hood blew down. She was fighting the wind itself, and it hated her.

She was halfway through her mission now, and the wind was only picking up. Now she was having a hard time getting it up in the first place. It wasn’t like she could just turn around or walk backwards. Since her promotion, her schedule had gotten more and more packed. A little wind couldn’t cancel anything on it. Saix may have been getting nicer by the day, but he still wouldn’t be happy if the mission never got done because she stuck around in places that had already been cleared of useful Heartless, waiting for the wind to stop. And of course, it was just her luck that the subway had been locked down today due to a tram breakdown.

Her luck turned around when she was walking down one of the winding streets. She saw a secluded area, covered with some towels and a metal fence in place of a wall and a door. Xion would normally never enter such a place, but she was desperate. It was completely protected from wind in all directions, and that was good enough for her.

When she stepped inside, she realized she was an intruder here just a moment too late. A short, slightly chubby boy with a t-shirt and a bandanna jumped straight up in the air, screaming like a little girl. Xion had seen him around here a few times, and had heard him called ‘Pence’. She had also heard him called ‘smart’, and she decided to take the lemons of this accidental intrusion and make lemonade.

She raised her hands in the air to show she was unarmed. The fact that she could summon a giant key at any moment was irrelevant. “Don’t worry! I’m friendly!”  
Pence backed up against the wall. “Who are you? What do you want?”  
Organization XIII was supposed to be a covert operation, but desperate times called for desperate measures. “My name is Xion. I need your help.”  
“Not until you show me your face!”

Xion was reluctant, but she really needed this problem solved. She flipped down her hood, revealing herself. Pence’s eyes went wide for a moment—even with the less-than-perfect haircut, Xion was, ahem, nice to look at, and raging hormones affected teenage boys in Twilight Town just the same as anywhere else. He quickly pulled himself off the wall and acted as casually as one could in such a situation. It wasn’t a very convincing performance, but gullible Xion bought it.

Pence scratched his head, trying to make it look cool rather than nervous. “Okay, Xion, what’s the problem?”  
Xion put on the puppy dog eyes that had proven so effective against Axel. “This hood. It won’t stay up. The wind keeps blowing it down. I really, _really_ need it to stay up. Can you please help me?”

Pence would normally reject such a request, but _darn,_ this Xion girl was cute. He’d feel really bad if he let her down, and besides, if this worked out well, he could finally brag about girls to Hayner, who was hogging Olette at the moment. Far from an unwanted intrusion, this was now the lucky break he had been waiting for his whole life (read, ‘since he got those hormones’).

The boy nodded. “Yeah, sure, whatever you need. Let’s see…” Pence looked at the hood, trying to figure out what the problem was. “I’ll need to blow a fan in your face as a test.”

This made Xion slightly annoyed with Pence, but if it fixed her problem, she was willing to do it. She flipped the hood up as Pence set up a high-speed camera and a laptop. Pence told her to put it back down—they needed a ‘control test’, whatever that was.

Pence held the fan in front of her face. “Control. Three, two, one…”

The fan blowing full-blast in Xion’s face made the wind outside look like a mild breeze. She instinctively shielded her face, but luckily Pence decided that this didn’t interfere with the test much, since she would have done it outside as well.

After a few long seconds, Pence shut off the fan. “Okay, we got some good data there. Now flip the hood up.”

Xion did as she was told, and the fan blew again. Inevitably, the hood flew off quite impressively.  Xion would have thought this good enough, but Pence wanted more tests. One from each side. One from the back. A second frontal test. Now another from the back…

After an hour of this, Xion was just as annoyed with Pence as she had been with the wind. Luckily, the last test ended right around that point. The boy started doing some very complicated-looking calculations—actually, he was just drawing gibberish to impress her, but again, Xion was young and gullible.

Pence started talking more techno-babble than Vexen—more impressive gibberish. “If we take the hood’s aerodynamic hyperflux rating, divide it by ten, then add in its universal wind resistance quotient and multiply it by the Wendy Number—that’s 76,342.57814—we get… ah-ha!” Pence stuck his finger in the air. “Just as I suspected! Your hood is in the… Amano Range. That means it is highly susceptible to high winds. Did you get all that?”

Xion just stared blankly at him for a second. “I’m terrible at math. Plus, I thought Amano was an ice cream brand. Speaking of ice cream, mind if I have one of these, I love these things…” She grabbed a bar of sea-salt ice cream in a very prominently placed box. It was the first thing Pence had seen—what was he supposed to do?

Pence continued before Xion could put two and two together. “I can get you a new, better hood in a week.”  
“A _week?!”_ Xion threw her arms in the air. “I need the hood to stay up _now!”_

Pence pulled back, surprised by the sudden outburst. She had been so kind and cute until now, if a little reluctant. Now had a really angry expression on her face, like a growling dog. He fumbled. “Um, I can fix something up for you to use in the meantime, wait just a second…”

The boy frantically grabbed a nearby cardboard box, cut it up and taped it back together in various ways and gave it to Xion. “Wear this under your hood,” he said quickly. “It’ll look a little odd, but the hood will stay up.”

Xion grabbed the box, put it over her head, flipped the hood up and stormed out without another word.

Pence sat down on the floor and sighed in relief. If this was what girls were like, Hayner could keep them all to himself if he was really that crazy. This kid was just happy staying single, thank you very much. As long as he never had to get yelled at by Xion again, he was fine with it—that girl was _scary._

Too bad he had taken so long that the wind had stopped blowing.

0=0=0=0=0=0

“…And that’s why I threw a box in his face and then threw his ice cream against the wall. I’m sorry.”  
Axel was hitting his forehead over and over with the palm of his hand. “Xi, we need to talk about your temper…”


	3. Dogfight

It wasn’t often that Axel ran late. Three-fourths of the time, he made sure to get done quickly, to maximize his time with Roxas and Xion. It helped keep them out of trouble, and besides, he enjoyed spending time with them. However, today fell in the other one-fourth.

The Keybearers stood in the plaza with the ice cream stand, patiently waiting for their friend and mentor. They had known that he might run late that day—a Darkside had emerged in Wonderland, and Axel had been sent with Demyx. He had told them in advance to just go to the clocktower themselves if he was more than an hour late.

It had been an hour and a half at this point, which Xion was justifying by calling it ‘cutting him some slack’. Roxas would have been bored out of his skull, but he was currently engaging in an interesting conversation with his friend. He was enjoying the conversation. In fact, he seemed to be enjoying talking with Xion a lot lately. Calling it a ‘crush’ is debatable—Roxas didn’t really understand that sort of thing yet. It was closer to the way brother and sister like each other.

In any case, Roxas was disappointed when the conversation was interrupted by the arrival of three fellows who seemed to make Xion a little nervous. He took one look at the leader and knew at once that this guy was a jerk. The kid had a smirk on his face, not a fun smirk like Axel, but a mean smirk like Xigbar or Vexen.

The group walked up to them, and the kid with the smirk spoke, cockiness filling his voice. “Hi there. My name is Seifer. You two are obviously new here, or else you wouldn’t be standing in that spot.”  
The other kids chuckled like it was the funniest joke ever uttered. Roxas looked confused. “Why can’t we stand here?” he asked.   
“Because this spot, my friends, is reserved by the Twilight Town Disciplinary Committee for a… meeting. We talk here during all our meetings. You’re gonna need to move.”  
Xion started to move, but Roxas held her shoulder lightly. It had been a long day, and he wasn’t in the mood for this. “We were here first,” he said, trying to emulate Axel’s more intimidating voices. “You can find a new place for the meeting.”  
“I’m afraid we can’t do that. This spot—” He shoved Roxas. “—is reserved.”

Xion looked ready to run. Seifer looked tough, and he had backup. But his behavior had only fueled Roxas with anger. Roxas didn’t usually get mad at anyone, but he had already been annoyed by the interruption, and shoving only made it worse.

Roxas’ voice got dark. “We were here first. Find a new spot.”   
Xion jumped—she had never heard Roxas like that. This made Seifer notice her. “Maybe you can leave and you’re… friend here can listen in?”  
Roxas only darkened his voice even more, sounding like Axel in his most hate-fueled moments. “No way am I leaving her with you.”  
“In that case, we might have to force you off the premises. Again, the lady will be staying…”

That’s when Roxas punched Seifer in the mouth.

Seifer stumbled back, wiping his face. “Oh, is that how you want to do this? Okay then. Let’s have a little dogfight.”

The boy lunged forward, swinging his arm. Roxas ducked down and struck him in the gut. Seifer fell to the ground, clutching his stomach. He yelled to the other two kids—“Don’t just stand there! Get him!”

The kids fell on Roxas from both sides, swinging foam batons. Without thinking, Roxas grabbed one in mid-swing and kicked its wielder, tearing it from the boy’s hands. He swung the baton hard at the other boy, knocking him down. He got into the stance he always used with the Keyblade.

As Seifer got up, anger flowed across his face. “Oh, now you want to do it like Struggle, huh? Everyone knows I’m the best guy in town at it.”  
Xion ran over to Roxas. “Stop it!” she yelled. “This isn’t worth it!”

Roxas wasn’t listening. This kid had tried to take his best friend, and he would make sure that the result was pain. He felt the baton in his hands, giving it a test swing as a weight test. It made a satisfying _swoosh_ as it passed through the air. It was much lighter than the Keyblade, but all that meant was that he could swing it harder.

Seifer pulled himself up. He grabbed the other baton off the ground and swung it down. Roxas parried the blow, swinging his arm to strike Seifer with his balled fist as he did so. Seier fell to the ground again, hitting the stone road with a loud _thunk._

As the two lunged at each other again, Xion jumped in the middle and tried to push the boys apart. Seifer shoved her, knocking her to the ground. Enraged, Roxas swung the baton even harder. His moves were automatic, muscle memory fueling him.

Seifer parried each blow, if barely. Roxas kept pushing, forcing the bully into an empty stall. He could feel the adrenaline coursing through his veins now, making him hit even harder. Seifer fell in, plastic bottles falling all over him. Roxas jumped over the stand, swinging the baton into Seifer’s side as he did.

Roxas stood over his opponent, still ready to strike. “Had enough, you jerk?”  
Seifer pulled himself against a wall, sitting up. He wasn’t seriously injured, but the bruises would hurt for a long time. “All right,” he said, raising his hand in a gesture of surrender. “I get it. You can keep the spot.”

Roxas panted heavily. He wasn’t getting out of his fighting stance. Xion ran over to him, using the side door to get in. She was yelling again. “Roxas! Let him go! You aren’t like this!”

The voice finally registered, and Roxas came to his senses. What was he _thinking?_ He could have just rolled his eyes and found a new place to talk to Xion, but he had gotten angry, and now the town bully would know them and have a grudge. His cover was blown, and so was Xion’s, and it was _his fault._

But he still couldn’t get Seifer’s words out of his head. _Again, the lady will be staying…_ The way he had said that had forced him into fight-or-flight mode somehow, calling on him to defend his friend.

A dark corridor opened a few feet away. Axel stepped out. “Sorry I’m so late, Demyx was making me do all the work…” He noticed the carnage by the stand. “Rox? Xi? What’s going on?”

Roxas sighed and lowered the baton, letting it slip out of his hands. He had some explaining to do…

0=0=0=0=0=0

Axel listened to the whole story at the clocktower, without interrupting or prying for more details. When Roxas finished, he sighed and his head in his hands. Why did the Keybearers get into these situations so often?

“Okay,” Axel said, wiping his face one more time and looking at the Keybearers with a serious expression. “First off, if anyone _ever_ says anything _remotely_ like that, you don’t stand and fight unless there isn’t any other option. You just _run._ Understand?” The two nodded their heads, and he sighed again. “You know, it would have been a lot easier if you had just moved.”  
Roxas looked down. “Yeah. I messed up bad. I’m sorry, Axel.”

Axel put his hand on Roxas’ shoulder. “Hey, there is one good thing about this. You stood up for her, and that’s important. And hey—he was the jerk in that situation, and he’ll know not to mess with you again. Just think a little next time, all right?”

Roxas nodded. The three watched the sunset in silence.


	4. Yo-Yo

The Keybearers had thought of Axel as a good friend before. Now they thought of him as the coolest man in Organization XIII.

Toys were uncommon in the Organization, even among the children. The mere fact that Axel had been able to produce this amazing, almost magical object from a coat pocket was cool enough. What he was doing with it, however, was far more impressive.

Axel wrapped the yo-yo around his arm, bounced it a few times, brought it back and made a simple picture with the strings. After holding the picture for a few seconds, he bounced the yo-yo horizontally, like a frog’s tongue, seeming to defy the basic laws of gravity. Then he scared his little audience for a moment by whipping it dangerously close to a vase, never quite hitting it but still coming close enough to make Roxas check to make sure Saix wasn’t watching.

When the device snapped back into Axel’s hand, Xion’s jaw dropped. “How do you _do_ that?”  
“By being awesome.”  
“Can you spell words?”

Without even blinking, Axel spelled out _Xion_ in blocky letters. This was when the Keybearers decided that yo-yos were magical. Even Xigbar clapped, watching from afar. Then he remembered he was still supposed to hate Axel for at least another two weeks and suddenly became very absorbed in an article in his magazine.

Axel snorted. “Was that approval, Xigbar? I think that was approval.”  
Xigbar just grunted in response. Roxas, on the other hand, was the most enthusiastic Axel had ever seen him. “Mind if I try?” he asked.

Axel tossed the yo-yo to him. “Sure, you can try. Don’t try anything fancy like me just yet—just drop the yo-yo down the ground and bring it back up.”

Roxas was really good at the dropping part. It was getting it back up he wasn’t so good at. The thing hit the floor, and no matter how hard he tried, Roxas could not bring it back up to his hand, even when Axel tried to teach him the proper technique. It was a little pathetic, actually. Roxas was humiliated, but he still had leftover awestruck wonder from Axel’s display of skill, so he didn’t feel too bad.

Xion, being the slightly more dexterous one, did a little better, managing to bring the yo-yo up and down a few times, though she was frustrated by the speed of the thing—that is, the lack thereof. Axel had made it look easy, whipping the thing around like a rocket, but for Xion, it moved like molasses.

The girl sighed a bit before handing it back. “I don’t think it likes us.”  
Axel laughed. “It’s an inanimate object, Xi. It doesn’t like or hate you.”  
“But I’m awesome, too.”  
“Ah, but there is another thing that makes me so good with it. I have years of practice.”  
Both Keybearers eyes widened. “ _Years?”_ they said in unison.

Axel smiled, remembering that they hadn’t even made it through six months yet, and had trouble comprehending multiple years. “Yup. Don’t worry though—you can do some neat stuff after a few hours with it. I can teach you some more when you get back from your mission.”  
“Finally,” a familiar voice said. “Someone remembers that there’s work to do.”

Axel turned to see Saix standing next to him in the doorway. His boss looked at him with the usual tired stare. “Axel. You know that thing is dangerous and stupid.”  
“You’re just still mad at me for accidentally bopping you the day before Rox got here.”  
“I am not so immature as to still be holding onto an incident that occurred months ago.”  
“Uh-huh. Just hold on to that, Sai, it’ll make you feel better.”

Saix did that thing where he seemed to be rolling his eyes without actually doing so again. He was getting better at it. “Don’t hit anything. Assignments in five minutes.”

Axel went back to showing off his moves, mesmerizing the Keybearers again. Vexen started to walk in, his usual arrogant swagger evident. ‘Started’ is the operative word here. He walked straight into the moving yo-yo, tangling himself in it.

Roxas and Xion cringed, not in sympathy, but rather fearing retribution. The Chilly Acedemic untied himself, throwing the string on the floor like a toddler, and turned to Axel. “What is the meaning of this?!”  
Axel just put his hands behind his head. “Sorry. It was an accident.”  
“An accident? Oh yes, making me fall face-first onto the floor. Accidents happen, don’t they?” He turned to Saix. “Certainly, you understand this.”  
Saix turned from his paperwork with a deadpan expression. “I would have thought you smart enough to notice the plastic object repeatedly flying in front of the doorway as you walked in.”

Axel grinned at the flabbergasted Vexen. “Ooo, burned…”


	5. The Hair Salon that Never Was

In general, Xion loved Atlantica. The change of pace with the mermaid transformation was fun, the underwater environment was beautiful and she liked listening to the locals sing various songs, especially the one with red hair, though she didn’t come out often. There was one thing she did not like about the place, though. There was one thing that aggravated her every time.

Going there made her hair wet.

Xion _hated_ getting her hair wet. It felt weird, it took ages to dry and it messed up the hair she combed every morning to perfection. She was the one who always used Larxene’s hairdryer after a shower, because the towel was never adequate to get her hair as dry as she liked, and her hair was still messed up when she turned the dryer off.

As you can imagine, going to the bottom of the ocean did not help this matter much. It was always her hair—the rest of her body came back surprisingly dry, as if she had only stepped into a light sprinkle of rain, but that was because her hair absorbed most of the water, and looked like a bucket had been dumped on it. Then Axel would have to hold off Larxene for a few hours as her hairdryer was used to dry an amount of water it was never designed to handle, which wasn’t exactly as fun as eating ice cream at the clocktower like he usually did in the evenings.

Thus, Axel wished things could burn underwater so he could burn Atlantica to the ground and never have to talk to Larxene again. It wasn’t like there were that many Heartless there, anyway—the Keyhole had been closed some time ago, and all the remaining Heartless were just stragglers who had managed to carve their own niece in the ecosystem. Why Saix kept assigning missions there, and why he always felt Xion to be _just perfect_ for those missions, he had no clue.

This led to the predicament of the Flurry of Dancing Flames on this particular day—getting his mission done early and coming back before Xion, and then watching the point where people RTC’d with a great sense of dread. He would rather do anything else than defend Xion’s multi-hour hairdryer session. Literally _anything._ Which was why he was willing to rack his brain for an alternate solution. His mind at that moment sounded something like this:

_Xion’s hair, Xion’s hair, what can you do to dry hair fast without a hair dryer… hair dryer… hair salon... I’ve got it!_

A few minutes later, Xion returned. As usual, her hair was a huge mess, so wet that Saix gave her a glare for dripping water all over the floor. Usually, this would be when Axel would double-check his potions for the upcoming boss battle with Larxene. Today, he was actually smiling, basking in his own genius.

Xion looked at her reflection in the window and kicked an imaginary stone. “I look like a mop again. I hate it when my hair gets wet.”  
Axel walked over casually. “You’ve mentioned that a few times, Xi. Don’t worry. I’ve got a solution way better than stealing that hairdryer.”  
Xion looked up. “What’s that?”  
“Something I hear girls are supposed to do at least once in their lives. Come on, we’ve got a lot of work to do, and it’s going to involve a lot of towels, a curling iron and one of Zexion’s books…”

0=0=0=0=0=0

“You, of all people, want to read _Hair Styles for Nobodies_?”  
“It’s not like you read it anyway.”  
“Why do you want it?”  
Axel pointed at the towel Xion was currently using to make her hair even more of a mess in a futile attempt to make it dry.   
“Oh. The Nobody Guides are all over there, in alphabetical order…”

0=0=0=0=0=0

“Vexen.”  
“Yes, my mortal enemy?”  
“I need your curling iron.”  
“Why would I give you my curling iron?”  
“Give me your curling iron or I will ram this chakram so far up your—”  
“It’s over there.”  
“Why do you have a curling iron, anyway?”  
“Because science. Get out before I reconsider.”

0=0=0=0=0=0

“Rox. I need your help with something.”  
Roxas took one look at Xion. “Atlantica?”  
“Yes,” the girl murmured.   
“Oh, that sucks. What can I do?”  
Axel patted his head. “A lot of things, Rox. And it starts by getting a chair to Xion’s room.”

0=0=0=0=0=0

And so, the sea-salt trio gathered in Xion’s room, ready to remedy the hair situation. Drying it was step one. Despite Xion’s frantic towel use, it was still just as wet as it had been when she stepped out of the dark corridor. Most hair stylists would have approached the problem with 11-petawatt hairdryers. However, there were perks to being the resident pyro. No, he did not set Xion’s hair on fire—that would be stupid. Instead, he created a fire in the air _around_ Xion’s hair, evaporating the seawater instantly.

When the flames vanished from the air, Xion had a huge smile on her face. “Thank you so much!”  
“I’m not done yet, Xi.” Axel handed her the book. “Pick a hairdo, any hairdo.”  
Xion flipped through the pages for a minute before pointing at a picture of a hairdo that looked like the waves of the sea. “I like this one.”  
Axel, ever the showman, made a dramatic bow. “It shall be done, milady.”  
Somehow, Xion’s smile got even bigger. It was moments like that when Axel felt like he had a heart.

After a quick glance at the instructions, Axel went to work. Roxas was mostly support for this operation, as Axel showed off yet another talent that made him something of a superstar to the Keybearers—hair styling. Any professional who saw him working would probably have screamed at the heavens, asking why they had been bested so.

Halfway though, Roxas noticed how quickly and efficiently Axel was working. “Wow, you’re good at this.”  
“Well, how else am I supposed to keep up this awesome red ‘do? Now no peeking—Xi is going to knock your socks off.”

Half an hour later, Axel clapped his hands and turned the office chair toward the mirror. Xion’s jaw dropped. It had actually come out _better_ than the one in the picture. Somehow, Axel had made her hair look longer than it actually was, which was a fairly impressive feat, since her short hair didn’t give him much to work with.

Axel smirked. “Not my best work, but it’ll do.”  
Xion gave him the tightest hug he’d received since she was new and kind of clinging to him for safety. If Axel had a heart, it would have been glowing as bright as the sun.

Meanwhile, Roxas finally understood what ‘hormones’ felt like.

0=0=0=0=0=0

When Xion entered the Grey Room, there were a lot of signs of admiration. Xigbar whistled, Zexion actually _looked up from his book,_ Luxord’s eyes went wide and Larxene looked beyond jealous. Axel just stood in the doorway, allowing Xion her moment of fame, a moment that was very rare for her.

Only Saix seemed unimpressed as he walked by. “Axel. You spoil her too much.”  
“Oh, did you call her a ‘her’ again? Good boy. You’re getting better at that trick.”  
“Only at your insistence. I still don’t like her.”  
“Twice in a row! I’ll have to give you a treat.”  
“Hmph.”

The Melodious Nocturne looked the most surprised of all—but not because of the hairdo. When his stare became noticeable, Zexion left the room quickly. He had the best danger sense in the Organization, short of Saix. It kept him alive when the sparks were flying and he just wanted to finish that last chapter. He was lucky, for at that moment, Demyx said something so stupid even Saix turned from his paperwork with a did-I-hear-that-right look on his face.

 “Xion is a _girl?”_

0=0=0=0=0=0

“Ready, Xi?”  
“You bet.”  
“Let’s do this.”

As Xion trashed his room with the Keyblade and Axel caught blackmail footage of him cowering at the chakrams, Demyx decided that he would always point out how feminine Xion was from now on…


	6. Panic

As far as Xion was concerned, the end of the worlds had come.

What was the problem, you may ask? Had fifty billion Giant Heartless suddenly appeared in the castle? Was the clocktower being demolished? Was the sky falling? No, it was none of these things. It was something far greater, far more horrible, at least in Xion’s eyes. Here is what was getting a reaction out of the Bright Shadow one might expect from a damsel in a B-movie in response to the giant monster.

The sea-salt ice cream was gone.

So what, you are certainly asking now? Go to the stand, get some more. But to fully comprehend the scope of this problem, one most look at it from the eyes of a (for our purposes) teenage girl who has two friends and lots of anxiety. Think on this for a moment. Say you are Xion. You spend every evening of every day eating ice cream on a dangerously high ledge. You have been assigned with ice cream duty for the day. Your only two friends in a group of complete jerks are counting on you. The ice cream is gone. It’s always there— _always._ And you had a Giant Heartless today, so _you_ _spent all your money_ preparing, and you used everything you bought, so you have nothing to sell to the Moogle, and mission rewards won’t be enough to cover it for all three sea-salt partners.

What? It still sounds merely inconvenient to you? Well, you also have to remember that Xion could be a panicky type at times. It came from the months of constantly worrying that Saix was going to dusk her at any moment, a fear that had been transferred to Xemnas when Saix suddenly had a change of attitude. It had become a self-preservation instinct—as long as she did everything _perfectly,_ no one would ever have any reason to dusk her, and she would keep the friends she had made and not be alone. To Xion, this was completely logical. If you think about it, it explains a lot of things about her behavior.

She had a logical chain of events to back this panic up, too. The thought process went something like this:

_1) Sea-salt ice cream disappears, leading to 2) Roxas and Axel not having any ice cream, leading to 3) them breaking the friendship because of lack of responsibility, leading to 4) complete loneliness and lack of friends. HOLY PANCAKE, TIME TO PANIC!!!_

See? Logical.

That brings us to her state at that moment. She was running around the Castle That Never Was madly, looking for the missing ice cream. In her panicked state, she was looking in very illogical places—the bathroom, under the sink, even under couch cushions. Some other members had noticed her panic, but none really paid attention to her. So the puppet was acting up again—it was Axel’s problem.

She slammed the door of the freezer after checking it for the fifteenth time. Her breathing was fast, and she was pulling the chains of her coat compulsively. Her friends weren’t back yet. They had recon today, and it was expected to take a while. She still had an hour. She tried to calm herself with this knowledge, but it went from _I still have an hour_ to _I only have an hour,_ making it worse.

Zexion looked up from his book. He was reading while eating a banana. “What’s the problem?”  
Okay. Zexion wasn’t too bad. He mostly kept to himself. Maybe he could help. “Have you seen any sea-salt ice cream?” she asked.  
“I don’t eat ice cream, sea-salt or not. Sorry.”  
_Well, that was helpful…_  
Seeing Xion’s face, and actually finding the emotion of ‘sympathy’ in his memory, Zexion sighed. “…But I do own a few cookbooks. One is entirely devoted to little snacks like that. Perhaps we can find a recipe for it and throw something together.”  
“Thank you! I’ll find a way to make this up to you, I promise!” Xion ran off to Zexion’s library. With another sigh and a shake of the head, the Organization bookworm followed.

0=0=0=0=0=0

“Don’t flip the pages so fast. You’ll rip it. Just use the table of contents.”  
“What’s the table of contents?”  
“…How often do you read?”  
“I read a lot!”  
“I mean other than the five manga books you own.”  
“…Well, I don’t really own any other books, besides that elephant book you gave me…”  
“Remind Axel to make more bets with me that I’ll lose, because you need to read more.”

0=0=0=0=0=0

Soon enough, Xion and Zexion had found the appropriate recipe. Now they were in the kitchen, attempting it with half an hour to go on the deadline. Zexion was going to do most of the hard stuff, but Xion was insisting on cracking the eggs so that she could be of some use other than grabbing things out of the pantry. She had never known the recipe involved eggs, but apparently it did.

Unfortunately, asking Xion to crack an egg was like asking Xemnas to speak in short, concise sentences. When Xion tried to crack the first egg, it didn’t so much crack as explode. When that mess was cleaned up, she tried again. Zexion felt Saix’s pain for the first time when the egg once again turned into a firecracker.

As he reluctantly cleaned again, Zexion made the largest sigh that had ever spilled from his lungs. “You’re tapping it too hard. Well, whacking it, really. Stop panicking, we still have time.”  
Xion washed her hands vigorously. “We have less than half an hour now!”  
“The recipe takes five minutes to make and ten minutes to freeze. We’ll be fine.”  
“What if they come back early?”  
“I highly doubt that will happen. Calm down. Take a deep breath.”

Xion tried to take deep breaths, but they kept coming out shaky. Zexion discreetly cracked the eggs, wondering if the panicking would eventually trigger her now-infamous temper, which he definitely did not want to deal with. Wasn’t this sort of thing Axel’s job? He could just leave now and let VIII deal with it when he got back.

But then he looked down on the little girl, her eyes wide, her breath oscillating between hyperventilation and shaky attempts at deepness, her fingers tugging on the necklace-like chain on her chest and running through her hair, he couldn’t help but experience some shadow of what a Somebody would feel as pity. He couldn’t just leave her like this. Ienzo wouldn’t have.

With a final sigh (he finally understood why Axel sighed so much), Zexion quickly finished the recipe and popped the mix into the freezer. He checked the clock—six minutes to go. The ice cream would be ready right on time.

Xion hadn’t noticed yet—she was still a little hysterical. Zexion put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s in the freezer. You can calm down now.”  
“T-t-thanks,” she stuttered. She took a breath, and this time it was only mildly shaky. The second breath wasn’t at all.  
“How did you end up like this, anyway?”  
“I was sup-p-posed to bring the i-ice cream today. I th-th-thought that if I wasn’t able to b-b-bring it, they would stop being my f-f-friends…”  
“I had friends when I was a Somebody, Xion. They don’t abandon you because you couldn’t bring the ice cream one day.”  
“…Oh. Okay, that makes sense. Thank you, Zexion.”  
“Your welcome.”

His duty complete, Zexion slumped down in the Grey Room and skimmed some novel or another. He thought to himself that he wouldn’t mind dealing with Xion again, if he had to. He just hoped that next time would involve slightly less drama.

0=0=0=0=0=0

Axel stepped out of the dark corridor. “Man, Xion would love Andy’s Room. Lots of cute things for her to attach herself to.”  
Roxas nodded. “Yeah. Where is she, anyway?”  
Zexion looked up. “She was having a bit of a panic attack while you were gone. Something about your ice cream being missing. I calmed her down for you. You owe me one.”  
Axel cringed, then crossed his arms. “Zexion, I just gained a lot of respect for you.”  
“Thank you for the compliment,” he said as he went back to the book.

Xion ran in, carrying the ice cream. She was smiling, her apparent episode not evident. “Ready to go?”  
Axel patted her on the head. “Of course, Xi.”

As the sea-salt trio left, Zexion closed the book and watched as the raven-haired girl gave him a smile and a nod.


	7. Bad Chemistry

Roxas didn’t gape at his boss much, but this was a special case. “What do you mean, I’m paired with Vexen today?”  
Saix stared at his clipboard, making notes. “I mean you’re paired with Vexen today. What part of this situation is hard to understand?”  
“He hates me!”  
“Which is why I’m pairing you two. You need to learn chemistry.”  
“I’m not messing with his chemicals. Axel says it’s bad for my health.”  
“The other kind of chemistry. And before you ask, yes, there is another kind of chemistry. It means how well two people get along. For example, you and Axel have good chemistry, while you and Vexen have bad chemistry. The latter of which I am fixing today.”

Roxas moaned. Vexen didn’t just not get along with the sea-salt trio—he hated them with a passion as hot as Axel’s flames. He was always trying to break them up or inconvenience Axel. They didn’t really know why. Axel said Vexen was just jealous that he wasn’t the one taking care of the Keybearers (and probably still mad over all his stuff getting torched). Xion thought it had something to do with her, though she couldn’t place her finger on what. Roxas didn’t care, just so long as he could avoid the man.

When he couldn’t avoid Vexen, and Axel wasn’t around to help him out, Roxas reverted to what Axel called the ‘Zombie Gambit’—going back to the way he was during his first few weeks in Organization XIII, responding to  any input from Vexen with simple affirmatives and negatives. ‘Yes, sir’, ‘no, sir’, ‘whatever you say, sir’. It kept him happy while minimizing interaction.

However, when Vexen walked in, Roxas knew immediately that the usual tactic wasn’t going to work. The Chilly Academic was putting something in his coat pocket, which almost always meant trouble. Roxas wondered if it was acceptable to use the Keyblade on him if he was trying some especially nasty trick.

When he reached Saix, Vexen had an arrogant smile on his face, another red flag. “What is my mission today, Luna Diviner?”  
Saix did the ‘not-rolling-his-eyes’ expression again, annoyed by the blatantly obvious attempt at gaining his favor. “You’ll be going with Roxas today on heart collection.”  
Vexen would normally rant for a few minutes, but he just smiled this time. “It shall be done.”  
Saix raised an eyebrow. “That was easier than usual. Why so cheerful, Number IV?”  
“I’m in a good mood.”  
Saix stared for one more moment, then opened the dark corridor for them. “Fine. Just get going.”

0=0=0=0=0=0

As Roxas walked ahead, Vexen palmed the concoction in his coat. It wasn’t as good as his other chemistry ‘side-project’, but it would serve as a good experiment, a sort of proof-of-concept for his master plan. The sea-salt trio would be broken, one way or another, and he would be around to see it. This was merely the first step.

Vexen let Roxas do most of the work, much to the boy’s annoyance. Occasionally, he would toss a potion or a Cure spell if the Key of Annoyance was having too much trouble—he wanted the credit for breaking the strongest friendship in the Organization, and he certainly wasn’t going to let the Heartless take it from him. He was sure not to pitch in too much, though—for this to work, Roxas needed to be tired.

Roxas breathed heavily as he took down the last Heartless, filling the mission gauge to maximum. “You’re almost as bad as Demyx.”  
Vexen kept up his arrogant smile. “No, Demyx would run off and leave you by yourself.”  
Roxas gritted his teeth, remembering the incident at Olympus Coliseum. “Okay, I’ll give you that. Let’s just RTC.”

Vexen hung back as Roxas walked toward the RTC point. Just as he was about to round the corner, Vexen tossed the concoction at the ground in front of him, sending Fumes Man Was Not Meant To Smell rising into the air.

Roxas coughed a bit, then stopped dead in his tracks. He looked around, as if not quite certain where he was or how he had ended up there. He turned to Vexen. “What was I just doing?”  
Vexen smiled in delight. “Heading back to the RTC point.”  
“Ah, right. Thanks.”

Roxas still looked extremely confused. He would occasionally stop and stare at some random thing for a moment before moving on. At one point he became so focused on a rock next to the street that he ran straight into a lamppost. Without even ending his staring contest with the rock, he walked around the lamppost like a robot.

In other words, Vexen’s Potion of Confusion had worked perfectly.

0=0=0=0=0=0

Saix looked up from his paperwork as Roxas and Vexen returned. While they were gone, Saix had gotten a tingle from his well-honed Stupidity Sense, and he knew just from looking that something was off with Roxas.

He walked over. “Good work. Here is your mission rewards.”  
Roxas took the bag of rewards with an odd expression. “We get rewards?”  
Saix stared at the boy. “Of course you do,” he said slowly, suspecting something was wrong. “Just like every time you’ve gone on a mission in the entire time you’ve been with this Organization. It’s called payment.”  
“Payment. Right.” Roxas walked off, bag in hand. He ran into a wall, shook his head like a dog, and walked toward his room.

Saix gave Vexen his best ‘laser-eyes’ look. “What did you do, Number IV?”  
Vexen was grinning, which was just as creepy as it sounds. “What are you talking about? He’s always like that.”  
“No, he was like that when he first joined. He acted that way for the first few weeks, then he learned enough from Axel to become competent. And I know he’s smart enough not to eat or drink anything you offer voluntarily, so I ask again…” Saix got up close, cornering the scientist against the window. “What. Did. You. Do?”

Vexen’s grin disappeared. “I didn’t do anything nasty, Luna Diviner! I threw a Potion of Confusion at him. The effects will wear off after—”  
“You made a chemical concoction without my approval, and threw it at one of two people in the Organization capable of collecting hearts, and I’ll go out on a limb and assume that you _didn’t test it first_ to make sure it wouldn’t do anything worse than make him run into walls?”  
The Chilly Academic was now in a panic. “I did test it! The effects ended on the rats after twenty-four hours!”  
“Twenty-four hours. Twenty-four hours. I’ll tell you what time it will be in twenty-four hours, Number IV.” Saix checked the clock. “It will be 5:03 PM. Which is the time he comes back from missions. He will be like this for a _whole mission._ And you expect me to let this slide?”

Vexen went right up against the window. “Terribly sorry! I’ll fix it, I swear!”  
“You better. Here is what is going to happen. Axel is not due back for another hour. That should give you plenty of time to come up with an effective antidote. If you do not correct this issue before Axel gets back, you will have to explain what happened, to his face, in livid detail. Then we shall see whether he feels like forgiving you. Is that understood?”  
The terrified scientist nodded hard. “Yes, sir!”  
“Get to work, then…”

0=0=0=0=0=0

Roxas had no clue what he was doing. He was following his instincts. Unfortunately, his instincts were stupid right now. Case in point, he was suddenly motivated to barge into Xion’s room without knocking.

Luckily, she wasn’t doing anything too bad. She was currently focused on trying to complete the math worksheet Axel had left for her—she was terrible at the subject, and Axel was trying to teach her. Of course, it did require a lot of concentration, concentration that was shattered when Roxas walked in and stood in the middle of the room, staring at her.

After a minute, Xion noticed and turned around to face her friend. “Roxas, you’re not supposed to be creepy. Why are you being creepy?”  
Roxas stared blankly at her. “…I don’t know.”  
Xion went straight to the ultimate test. “How many days has it been since you joined Organization XIII?”  
“…I don’t know.”

Xion called out. “Saix, someone broke Roxas!”  
Saix poked his head in. “I know. You don’t need to shout across the castle.”  
“Sorry. When will he be better?”  
“Less than an hour, if Vexen has a self-preservation instinct…”

Saix turned to Roxas—well, he turned to the place Roxas had been standing just a moment before. The boy was gone.

A scream emanated from Larxene’s room. “What are you doing here, you little twerp?!”  
“…I don’t know.”  
“Get out before I strangle you!”

Saix hit the wall with his head a few times. It was going to be one of those days.

0=0=0=0=0=0

Zexion looked up from _Chemistry for Nobodies_ slowly. “Yes, Roxas?”  
Roxas stared for a moment.  “What am I supposed to be doing?”  
“Well, whatever it is, I’m sure it has nothing to do with my library. If you need a book, I can get one for you. Otherwise, you’re just standing there being useless, and you need to go talk to Axel.”  
“Axel isn’t back yet.”  
“Then talk to Saix. Or Lexaeus. Or _anyone but me.”_

As Roxas turned around, bumped into the doorframe and walked off, Zexion went back to his book, shaking his head. Then Vexen barged in, carrying a piece of paper.

Vexen seemed to be in a panicked state. “Zexion. Do you know chemistry?”  
He held up the book. “Working on that.”  
“Then come with me. There is science to be done!”  
“Right now?”  
“If I don’t do this science, Axel might throw me off the castle.”

Zexion gave up on reading any more today, closed the book and trudged off to the lab.

0=0=0=0=0=0

Lexaeus looked up from his heart-and-crown puzzle. Roxas was staring at him in a slightly creepy manner. As the resident introvert, Lexaeus followed suit.

This staring contest would have lasted forever if Roxas didn’t break the silence. “Zexion said to talk to you.”  
“…Why?”  
“I don’t know.”  
“Then get out.”  
“…Okay.”

0=0=0=0=0=0

Vexen stood over the antidote. “I believe we have done well.”  
Zexion looked up from the book and inspected the concoction. “Did you add the salt?”  
“Yes, of course I did!” He pointed to the spots of salt floating in the liquid. “Do you think I’m stupid?”  
“I don’t even know why you brought me here if you didn’t want me to help.”

Rolling his eyes dramatically, Vexen carried the antidote over to Roxas, who was now standing in the middle of the hallway, staring his creepy, blank stare at a very distressed Demyx. He held the thing out in front of the Keybearer. “Drink this.”

Luckily, Roxas’ ability to remember Axel’s don’t-trust-anyone talk was seriously impaired by the Potion of Confusion, and he took it without complaint. He blinked. “What just happened? …Wait, it’s coming back to me…” Roxas whipped around to face Vexen, pointing his finger at the scientist the exact same way he had been pointed at by him before. “I’m telling Axel about this!”

Vexen’s face fell. “I can’t bribe you with anything? Anything at all?”  
“…Anything?”  
Vexen got down on his knees, which gave everyone Goosebumps—Vexen didn’t grovel in front of Saix, let alone Roxas. “Yes, anything you desire! Just don’t tell him. Please! Have mercy, oh Key of Destiny!”  
Roxas considered. “Anything… well…”

0=0=0=0=0=0

“Rox, where’d you get an RC car?”  
“Vexen.”  
“Why’d he give it to you?”  
“To be nice. Very nice. Insanely nice…”  
“Oh, so I’ve finally taught you the art of blackmail. Now you can bend this Organization to your will just as easily as I can.”  
“Blackmail? What makes you think I’m blackmailing him?”  
“That’s the spirit, Rox. That’s the spirit…”

Moral of the story: Axel is a _terrible_ role model sometimes. Also, don’t piss off Roxas. Try to avoid angering the sea-salt trio in general.


	8. Crush

“Axel, why do I get nervous around Xion now?”

Today was what Axel called a ‘Quiz Day’. Roxas had lots and lots of questions today. Now, they weren’t too awkward, _per se,_ but Axel still wasn’t too sure how to answer them. The reason was that what they lacked in outright brazen awkwardness, they earned back double in emotional complexity that a Nobody shouldn’t have had.

Roxas had pulled Axel into a private corner of the castle, and was now berating the man with enough questions to make him think back to the days before the ‘Axel Lost His Cool’ Incident. They all involved Xion in some way, and they all should have been Roxas’ capacity for feeling. Roxas was different from the others, sure, but this was insane.

Axel scratched his chin, trying to drive away the sudden itching he had developed. “Well, what is there to be nervous about?”

Roxas looked down at the floor. “I don’t know. I just… look at her, and I can’t stop looking, and I start getting all sweaty and nervous.”

Realizing what the problem was, Axel laughed and covered his face. “Listen, Rox. You’re a Nobody, and you shouldn’t be feeling what you’re feeling, but somehow you’ve managed to bypass the basic laws of Nobody nature, so you’re feeling it anyway.”

“What? What am I feeling?”

Axel patted his friend on the head. “You, my Keybearer, have a crush.”

Roxas, of course, was supremely confused now. “What’s a crush?”

 _Okay, Axel, keep it simple, boil it down to what he’s feeling._ “A crush, Roxas, is when you really, really, _really_ like someone, even more than you like a best friend. You like them so much that you get nervous around them, because you’re afraid that you’ll mess up and ruin the whole thing.”

“But I’ve been talking to Xion since I met her. Why would I be afraid that I’d mess up?”

“I can’t answer that for you. Only you know exactly how you feel. I don’t even understand how you’re feeling at all.”

Roxas looked around, as if looking for anyone who might be listening in. “I’m starting to think you’re wrong about not being able to feel.”

Axel whistled. “Whoa, don’t go saying that in front of Saix or Xemnas, that’s traitor talk right there.”

“What? No it isn’t!”

“Well, think about it. If we could feel without hearts, then why would we need to complete Kingdom Hearts at all?”

Roxas, surprisingly, answered immediately. “To feel more.”

Axel smiled. “Nice save there.” He looked around as Roxas had, then bent down. “And to be honest, after being around you two for this long, I’m starting to think the same thing. Now come on. Saix is waiting on us.”

0=0=0=0=0=0

“Roxas, you’ll be paired with Xion today.”

On most days, this would be a pleasant surprise. For efficient heart collection, the Keybearers were generally split up. They usually only went together on the hardest missions (or when Saix was in a good mood, which he was almost never). Despite the difficulty, though, the two always came back saying it was worth it. Today, though, was different.

Roxas tugged on the collar of his coat. “Xion? Okay, that’s good, I guess…”

Saix raised his eyebrow. “You’d usually be more exuberant. Is something wrong?”

“No, no, it’s all good. I’m just, uh, worried about how hard it will be if we’re together today.”

Saix kept up the skeptical stare. “Don’t be. It’s basic heart collection. It’s in Beast’s Castle. The reason I’m sending you both is because they have a serious infestation today, and we want to grind as many hearts as we can from it before Beast steps in and starts destroying them all.”

“Oh, that’s good. Yeah, Beast won’t be happy. We better get going.”

Roxas, as you’ve probably noticed by now, was a terrible actor. But Saix had better things to do than inquire on the personal issues of the Keybearers. As long as they collected the hearts, he didn’t care. He sighed. “Don’t worry about the difficulty now. Just go prepare.”

Roxas nodded and walked toward the Moogle to buy some potions. Somehow, Axel’s talk of crushes had made him even _more_ nervous. He liked Xion even more than a best friend? How was that even possible? Could he like her too much? Suddenly, the deep thoughts went over Roxas’ mental capacity, and he got stuck on repeating her name in his head over and over.

He snapped out of it when he heard a voice. “Hey, kupo! Wake up. Are you going to pay for those, kupo?”

Roxas nodded and stuck the munny in front of the Moogle. The little shopkeeper snorted. “Thank you for your generosity, kupo, but you don’t need to pay that much. I’ll get your change…”

By the time the Moogle had reappeared from under the stall, change in hand, Roxas had spaced out again, stuck on the name just like the first time. Annoyed with the castle’s most distractible customer, the Moogle just stuck the change in Roxas’ pocket himself, secretly keeping some that he should have given. ‘Subtraction errors’ were always convenient.

Noticing the sensation of something being stuck in his pocket, Roxas gave a quick thanks and slumped on the couch, shaking his head. _If this is a crush, then I don’t like crushes._

His head was spinning, and his heart was beating way too fast for the current circumstances. He was having a hard time thinking about anything other than Xion, and stuck the potions in his panel grid a little more haphazardly than he normally would have. What was going on?

Of course, the girl of his newfound obsession walking in right at that moment didn’t help matters much.

Xion was running in, seeming frantic. She stood at attention, even throwing in a salute for good measure. “Sorry I’m late! The dusks messed with my clock.”

Saix looked up at the clock. “Xion, it’s nine o’clock, which is the scheduled wake-up time. I keep telling you, you don’t have to wake up early just to please me. Collecting hearts is more important, and getting more sleep will affect your mission performance positively.”

Xion nodded. “Yes, sir! Thank you, sir!”

“You’re unusually jumpy today.”

“Oh, I was just worried about waking up late.”

“I just said…” Saix facepalmed. Talking to Xion sometimes was like talking to an abnormally anxious brick. Words of praise, or even tolerance, went in one ear and came out the other. “Never mind. You’re with Roxas today. Heart collection in Beast’s Castle. See me when you two are ready to leave.”

Xion caught sight of Roxas and walked over. She did seem more cheerful than usual today, even with the ‘late’ wakeup. Maybe the three hours of extra sleep had done her good. Roxas noted all this because, just like yesterday at the clocktower, he couldn’t stop staring at her. There was just something about her that held his gaze.

She sat down next to him. “Hi, Roxas.”

Roxas finally managed to pull his gaze away, nervousness motivating him. “Hello.”

Xion was doing that smile she always did when she was happier than usual. Somehow, it made things _even worse_. “I found something cool on a trip to Destiny Islands. I’ll show you when we get to Beast’s Castle.”

Roxas nodded and kept looking down. His breathing was heavy. “Okay, sounds good.”

Xion looked worried. “Roxas, are you okay?”

“What? Yeah, yeah, I’m perfectly fine.”

“It’s just that you seem a little… distracted.”

“It’s nothing, really.” He was avoiding her gaze now, which made Xion very suspicious. But it was the only way Roxas could maintain some basic control over himself. He thought that if he looked her in the eyes, he’d start babbling randomly.

Luckily for him, Xion concluded that he was just a little off today, chalking it up to Roxas being Roxas. He forced himself to keep looking down at the ground while she finished arranging her panels. He got the feeling that today was going to be a long day for him.

0=0=0=0=0=0

When the Keybearers arrived at Beast’s Castle, Xion wasted no time in making good on her promise. She tapped Roxas on the shoulder, forcing him to look at her, and raised her finger to say ‘watch this’. She summoned her Keyblade, took off the little keychain with the three connected circles (causing it to look a little fuzzy), pulled out a black keychain with a crown and attached it to the weapon. Instantly, the Keyblade transformed into a massive black key, with a huge, blunt edge and a large blue gem in the middle of the handle.

Roxas, miraculously, actually found himself distracted by the sudden transformation. “Wow, Xion, that’s awesome!”

Xion smiled, grabbing Roxas’ attention again. “Thanks. I found it in a chest in a cave with a bunch of pictures on the walls. It has a word on the crown, look.”

She held the keychain in front of him, letting him read it. There was small lettering on the crown, the same shade as the gem. It read _Oblivion._

“I think that’s its name,” she continued, admiring the new Keyblade in her hands. “It’s kind of a gloomy name, though. I’m trying to come up with something better. Any ideas?”

It took Roxas a moment to register the question. “Well, I guess you could call it something cool, like maybe, um, Darklight.”

Xion slapped his arm playfully, still smiling. “No! That’s silly. Light isn’t dark. They’re opposites.”

“It’s kind of like your title. You know, Bright Shadow, wielder of Darklight.”

Roxas was definitely rambling now, but Xion didn’t seem to notice. “Hmm. Good point.” She held Oblivion out in front of her, ready to christen it with its new name. “Darklight it is!”

Now he was blushing. “Um, maybe we should get to the mission.”

Xion nodded. “Okay! I want to try this out!”

It didn’t take long for her to get the chance. As soon as they stepped into the grand hall, a large  group of Heartless fell upon them. Despite his thoughts of Xion, Roxas was still a trained fighter, and had no trouble paying attention this time. He batted at the various powerful Heartless, dispatching them as one would crush an ant under a boot.

In the occasional moments he caught sight of Xion, he was extremely impressed. She was using her new Keyblade to devastating effect. If Roxas was crushing the ants under his boot, then Xion was not only doing the same, but Darklight allowed her to _keep stomping_. It was a little scary to watch, which was why Roxas looked away and paid attention to the battle.

Not because she looked even better fighting, and if he looked too long, he might have gotten distracted by the crush. Nope, totally not. Not at all, in any way. That’s what he kept telling himself, anyway.

0=0=0=0=0=0

Beast was never happy. Tonight, though, he was _especially_ not happy.

Beast ran down the staircase, all-out rage pushing him away from the rose and down into the invasion. He roared, making the two humans in black cloaks drop their weapons in stunned shock. The Heartless  had been stunned as well, and Beast flew into them, hacking and slashing madly at the enemies. Whatever Heartless had managed to survive the initial onslaught by the humans with giant keys were torn apart within ten to fifteen seconds of his arrival.

When the last of the vermin had been destroyed, Beast stood in the middle of the room, breathing heavily. He was shaking. Fighting off the creatures had been very taxing. Inevitably, he fell to the ground.

Belle ran down the stairs, mop in hand, the usual anthropomorphic clock and candles following close behind. She bent down, looking worried. “Beast! You have to stop doing this. It isn’t good for you.”

Beast grunted. “I’m only trying… to protect you…”

“I can handle myself, really.” Belle looked up at the humans, who were watching while testing their ears to make sure they still worked. “Thank you two for your help. I think he got the last of them.”

They nodded and left. Belle stroked Beast’s fur soothingly as she tended to his latest wounds.

0=0=0=0=0=0

Xion shook her head like a wet dog. “That was… scary.”

Roxas found that he could look at Xion again without being totally awestruck. “Yeah. Looks like we still managed to make the minimum quota anyway. Ready to head back?”

Xion looked back, lingering on the front steps as the doors finally finished closing. “That lady… I wonder why she looks after Beast. I mean, I’m sure he isn’t as bad as he looks, but I don’t know what I’d do.”

Roxas shrugged. “Maybe she has a crush?”

Xion turned to him in confusion. “Huh?”

“Axel said that a crush is when you like someone even more than you like a best friend.”

“Oh,” Xion said, nodding. “Maybe.” She stared at the castle a bit more before turning to Roxas again. “Can I ask a weird question?”

Roxas nodded. “Sure, go ahead.”

“If I was a beast, would you take care of me?”

Roxas nodded emphatically. “Of course I would!” Then he scratched the back of his neck, the old habit ever so hard to break. “I think I might, uh, have a crush on you.”

Xion just smiled.

0=0=0=0=0=0

“Axel, do you have a crush on us?”

_“What. Have. I. DONE.”_


	9. Cold

The Deserters were  especially annoying today. There were a few reasons for this. The usual reason, of course, was in full effect—they ran around all over the place and were almost impossible to hit, and if you didn’t keep hitting them once you got one, they’d run off again. There was also the fact that there were lots of them around today, in multiple groups for the first time in Roxas’ memory.

But the main reason was that Arendelle was cold.

The Keybearers had been paired up again today. This was not because they had caught Saix in a good mood. Quite to the contrary, they had caught him in a _bad_ mood, after Xion had accidentally dropped and broken a plate (the third time this happened) and Roxas had made himself look like an accomplice by helping the cleaning operation. The punishment was to tackle an incredibly infuriating mission in an unbelievably cold world.

Most of the time, the Keybearers could stand the cold much better than Axel. The black-on-black uniform probably helped a lot. Today, though, Arendelle was somehow colder than usual, and it was a frozen wasteland to begin with. It also had wind chill today. Even with a hood of some sort, wind chill is an insidious little thing. When you have a uniform with a hood _that always blows down in the wind,_ it becomes absolutely evil. It makes one’s ears feel like they’re in a freezer.

For ninety percent of the population, including Roxas, this is an annoyance that is just bearable if it isn’t too bad. For the more sensitive ten percent, Xion among them, it is as if nature herself hates your guts.

Roxas finally caught a moment to cast Cura on himself. In the moment it took him to do this, he caught sight of Xion Limit Breaking, flying around manically with the now-glowing-blue Keyblade before hovering in midair to deliver a blast of energy, four pillars of plasma or some other force destroying everything in their path. These attacks were effective against Giant Heartless. The Deserters never had a chance.

Xion dropped to the ground, landing as lightly as a cat, Keyblade straight up in the air. She was breathing heavily and gritting her teeth, as if she were only resting for a moment before leaping into battle again. When she realized that she had blasted the entire mountain clean of Heartless for at least a mile, she sighed and stood up. The Keyblade disappeared from her hands, and she stood silently.

Roxas walked over, judging each slow step. “Are you okay, Xion?”

She nodded as she pulled a potion out of her coat. “Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

“You don’t need to use any potions. We’ve filled the mission gauge completely, you can check.”

Xion checked the gauge on her wrist. “Oh. Good.” She started walking down the mountain without him. “Come on, let’s RTC. We can pick up the chests in a holo-mission. A _climate-controlled_ holo-mission…”

Roxas ran down the mountain after her. “Don’t like the wind?”

She pouted and nodded. “How do you stand it? I feel like I’m sticking my head in a frozen lake.”

He shrugged. “I guess I just don’t feel it as badly as you do.”

She snorted and smiled that little smile that always made Roxas smile back. “Then you’re lucky. Let’s just go.”

The Keybearers went back to town to the RTC point. Along the way, Roxas couldn’t help but notice the wind, and now it was getting on his nerves as well. Was he getting that from her? It wouldn’t have been unprecedented. Xion had been giving him lots of personality traits lately. He had been feeling a lot closer to Xion in general since Beast’s Castle. It felt odd, but in a good way.

Roxas pushed these musings out of his mind as they reached the dark alleyway of the RTC point. He reached out his hand and tried to open a dark corridor back to the castle.

Tried to, anyway. Points for the effort.

0=0=0=0=0=0

“Vexen, these orders come from Lord Xemnas himself. We need a way to shut down dark corridor capacity for certain members, in case of an attempt at an overthrow of Organization leadership. I am assigning you the task of building a machine that can do such a thing. You may use any means you have at your disposal. Get it done and report back to me.”

These were the exact words out of Saix’s lips. Note the distinct lack of wording excluding the sea-salt trio as ‘means at disposal’, requiring the notification of the selected guinea pig beforehand and excluding said guinea pig from performing the test during a mission in the coldest of all of the worlds. Among the many other brilliant things he had done, Even had dabbled in law school at one point.

Vexen, ever the scheming weasel, had jumped at the chance to do actual useful science while messing with the Keybearers in the process. He had been especially infuriated with those two lately. They were destroying his credibility with their little even-better-than-best-friends thing. Roxas was one thing. As the Organization scientist, Vexen had been informed of Roxas’ true origins, and understood that they made him different, more capable of real emotion. But Xion… the Replica hadn’t been supposed to feel anything at all. It was supposed to be like a robot, doing the bidding of Xemnas without question and without mercy. That was how she was when she came about. Then Axel and his little brat had stepped in and turned her into a girly girl who wouldn’t kill anything that wasn’t a Heartless. He knew that wouldn’t have happened if he had watched her that first day. If she had grown emotions at all, she would have inherited his genius.

Well, it was too late now, so he went for the next best thing—breaking her  spirit and getting her back to factory condition. This was easier said than done. Her friends acted as a sort of safety net, catching her if she started to fall into despair. And this whole thing with _Nobodies_ apparently feeling what could be interpreted as _love_ was getting in the way even more. Vexen had dubbed it the ‘Keybearer Bonding Problem’, and fixing it was his top priority. Never mind that staying in the good graces of the two was his best shot at a heart. They were not following the rules. They were meant to be like computers, and computers always followed the rules.

Vexen had decided that forcing them into a survival situation would break them up fairly quickly. If they thought they were so special with their lovey-dovey stuff, they could wait and see how they thought of each other when there was only enough food left in the rations for one person, and they were both starving. It was the perfect plan.

However, in his calculations, Vexen had forgotten to account for two things. First was the fury of Axel, as usual—for all his scientific knowledge, Vexen just couldn’t take a hint. Second was the ingenuity of two humans lost in a strange place.

0=0=0=0=0=0

Xion gripped Roxas’ arm way too hard. “What’s going on, Roxas?”

Roxas sighed and closed his eyes. “I don’t know. The best thing to do is wait for Axel to come and rescue us.”

Xion gripped even tighter. “What? Axel’s got recon! With _Demyx!_ Who knows how long he’ll be gone?”

Roxas held Xion’s shoulder with a gentle touch, trying to do it the way Axel did it. “We’ll be fine. We’re in a city. If it gets too cold, we can just go inside, remember?”

She blinked. “I didn’t think of that…” A gust of wind blew in her face, making her screech in surprise for a second. “Yeah, let’s do that. Like, right now.”

Unfortunately, ‘going inside’ was easier said than done. All the inns were filled up, and wouldn’t even let them stay in the lobby unless they paid way more than they had. All the businesses had closed for the night. All the other doors in town were locked, and whenever someone came to the door, they were not friendly or sympathetic.

Roxas looked up at the man standing over him. “Hey, we’re not even going to stay a whole night. We just need a few hours. Can you please let us in to warm up a bit?”

The man growled. “I’m not letting a couple of street kids into my house! Go back to the hole you came from!” With that, the jerk slammed the door in their faces.

Roxas glanced at Xion. After so long in the cold, being turned away at every building, she seemed on the verge of crying. Roxas looked back at the door and, with no remorse whatsoever, summoned his Keyblade, broke the man’s window and stormed off. Xion ran after him, but not before doing the same to the other window.

0=0=0=0=0=0

Things at the Castle That Never Was were more or less typical, except for something very notable. It was notable enough to make Saix look up from his paperwork to check the time ever few minutes. Combined with his Stupidity Sense blaring like a siren, it was making him feel some shadow of _worry_ for once in his life. The Keybearers were not back yet.

Saix heard the noise of a dark corridor and turned, but was disappointed when it was just Axel and Demyx returning from their mission. Axel walked over and sat down next to Saix. “Well, Demyx wasn’t much help, so I just gave him my notes and told him to make a proper report. That’s why it will only be fifteen words or so the first time.”

Saix didn’t even look up. “That will only happen if Demyx thinks he can get away with it, which I promise you he won’t.”

“Exactly why I’m making him do it.” Axel looked around. “Are Roxas and Xion back yet?”

“No. I’m just as concerned as you are. They may not have taken my punishment well.”

“You think? You punished them for an accident, Sai. That’s more than a little harsh. But hey—feeling bad about it is something new for you. You’re getting good at the whole ‘not-being-a-jerk’ thing.”

Saix did the usual non-committal snort. “I feel no regret. I’m merely wondering if their reaction is the cause of the delay.”

Axel considered this for a moment. “I don’t think so. They’ve handled tougher punishment missions without running away or anything. They’re probably just doing extra-credit stuff like chests.”

“Perhaps.” Saix concentrated. Something was nagging at him. Something about Vexen… “Wait.”

“What is it?”

Saix stood up and walked toward Vexen’s lab. “Come with me. Bring your chakrams.”

0=0=0=0=0=0

The Keybearers stood in the forest and breathed deeply. Roxas wiped his brow. “Okay. Maybe breaking his windows wasn’t a smart idea.”

Xion looked back. “Yeah, getting all the guards running after us was a bad plan.” She looked at Roxas and smiled. “He still deserved it, though.”

Roxas grinned. “Definitely. Maybe he’ll think twice next time before chasing off a couple ‘street kids’.” He took in his surroundings. “Now what?”

Xion’s smile vanished, and her eyes went wide. “Oh, no. Can you open a dark corridor yet?”

Roxas concentrated and threw his hand out. A whole lot of nothing happened. It looked absolutely pathetic. “…Nope.”

“Oh, no, we’re going to be here when night falls, the sun’s already almost gone, we’ll get lost in the dark…”

“Xion. We control light. We’re not going to get lost in the dark, because _we can_ _glow in the dark_.”

Xion blinked again, her rising panic grinding to a halt. “Oh, right.”

Immediately, both Keybearers started glowing with light. They didn’t use this power often—it just wasn’t that useful most of the time. You’d think shadow creatures would hate light, but there you go. In this case, though, it meant the difference between life and death, and they thanked the worlds for it.

Roxas glanced at the now-luminous Xion. She was now even more beautiful, the white light making her black hair and cloak look a dark silver. He was completely awestruck for a moment, mesmerized by her, but then he remembered his current situation and walked toward the mountain, gesturing to her. “Bring some sticks. We’ll find a cave and start a fire.”

“We didn’t bring any Fire spells.”

“Which is why we’re bringing the sticks…”

0=0=0=0=0=0

“Permission to dusk Number IV has been denied to me, Axel.”

The Flurry of Dancing Flames was showing off his worthiness of the title. Most of the lab was on fire, sending no-doubt-nasty fumes into the air. In addition, he was pinning Vexen to the wall and punching him over and over. It made Larxene look tame.

Axel stopped punching for a moment. “Hear that, Vex? I get to beat your face in _again_ when I get back! Now _tell me where they are!”_

Vexen was whimpering. “I don’t know! They’re in Arendelle, that’s all I know!”

Axel threw Vexen to the ground and stood over him. The look on his face was the scariest he had ever had up to that point, and that’s saying something. “Listen here. You are going to come with me to Arendelle. We’re going to find the Keybearers. Then you will explain why they can’t open dark corridors, and why they won’t be able to go on missions with each other if you don’t fix it. Then you will go home and fix it while we three decide what to do with you. The alternative is pain, followed by the release of _a certain video_. _Understood?”_

“Yes!” Vexen sprung up and opened the dark corridor to Arendelle himself. “It’s night there. We don’t have much time. Come on!”

Saix shook his head in exasperation as he followed the two mortal enemies through.

0=0=0=0=0=0

Finding a cave had been easy enough. Staying in there even protected them from the wind chill. The fire was a little harder.

Roxas was rubbing two sticks together as fast as he could manage. That was how they did it on TV, so it was worth a shot. But it was rather ineffective so far—he was just wearing down the sticks while muttering words he had learned from Xigbar. The friction he was causing in his frustration might have started the fire, had it not been so cold.

When the sticks broke from being whittled down to the core, Roxas threw them against the wall and pulled out two more from the pile, which was now down to four. It was freezing cold now. His black cloak kept him from losing too much heat, but things were still looking pretty bad for the Keybearers. The wind had picked up outside, meaning they couldn’t leave unless they wanted to try navigating through the storm, which they certainly didn’t. They were also both tired and hungrier than they had ever been.

Xion wailed and put her head on Roxas’ shoulder. “When is Axel coming?”

Roxas sighed as he kept rubbing. “I don’t know.”

She was sobbing into his arm, sniffling loudly. “I just want to sleep, but the ground is so cold and hard, and it’s so cold… I just want to go home…”

Roxas was usually horrible at comforting people. It was just above his life experience. But when he looked at Xion, feeling her head bob up and down as her tears streaked down his arm, a basic human instinct was triggered in him. Without thinking, he pulled off his Organization coat, revealing his black-and-white checkerboard shirt underneath, and threw it over her. She threw one side back, putting them both underneath.

The Keybearers sat there together. Xion was still crying, but it wasn’t as bad now. Roxas felt much colder now, but as long as Xion was safe and warm, he didn’t care one bit. He thought about how the others treated her. Axel treated her like a real person, and she was growing on Saix, but everyone else treated her like an object, a tool. He didn’t know why. He also didn’t know why they kept saying she was a puppet. _Blast them,_ he thought to himself. _Blast them all. Blast this whole Organization. Treating Xion like that. Who do they think they are? Blast them all…_

He noticed that Xion had stopped crying. She had fallen asleep. He delicately put her head in his lap, to make sure she wasn’t uncomfortable, and went back to rubbing the sticks.

0=0=0=0=0=0

Axel pointed at one of the caves and called. “Look! There’s light over there! It’s too white to be fire! I think it’s them!”

Without continuing, Axel ran up the mountain, the other two Nobodies trailing close behind. He ran in, almost tripped on a rock, recovered and caught sight of Roxas and Xion. He might have found it cute, if relief wasn’t spreading over him with more power. He ran over and bent down. “Rox! Xi! I thought—”

Roxas put a finger to his lips and pointed at Xion. She was sleeping, making that little cute snore. “It’s been a rough night for her,” he whispered.

Axel nodded and patted her head. When Saix and Vexen came in, he raised his hand, signaling them to stay quiet. Then he turned back to Roxas. “Come on. Let’s go put her in her real bed.”

0=0=0=0=0=0

_Ca-click!_

_“Where’s the lawrencium? Why aren’t you reacting?”_

Almost everyone burst out laughing at the television, which had been rolled in from Axel’s room into the Grey Room. Even Saix managed a snort. Axel was grinning from ear to ear, finding Vexen hitting his head with the throw pillow to be far more humorous.

What really got on Vexen’s nerves was not the video or Axel, however. It was the sight of the Keybearers, sitting on the floor together while looking up at the television, laughing with their arms draped around each other’s shoulders.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“We are all a little weird and life’s a little weird, and when we find someone who’s weirdness is compatible with ours we join up and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.”  
>  \--Dr. Seuss_

“Rox, what are you doing?”

Roxas didn’t even look up from the sketchbook he had bought in Twilight Town after the usual ice cream. “Drawing.”

Axel’s head jumped back a bit. “Really? You’ve never drawn anything in your life.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t start.”

Axel walked over to the bed and sat down. “And what are you drawing, my Keybearer?”

“Xion.”

Axel snorted. Roxas had started sitting next to Xion at the clocktower, and Axel had caught them holding hands once. This was all stuff a Nobody shouldn’t have been capable of. It might have been more impressive to him, if he hadn’t been around the two for so long. He was used to un-Nobody-like displays of emotion by now. Still, if this was what he thought it was, it would make him seriously question what Xemnas kept telling them about completing Kingdom Hearts.

He glanced at the drawing. It was surrounded by practice drawings, of simple shapes and a few inanimate objects. This was notable because the drawing itself was very impressive for a first-timer. The drawing was a picture of Xion just standing there with a smile on her face, looking to the right at something. Roxas had drawn the Organization coat perfectly, the feet were two cute triangles and the head even cuter, especially the smile. To top it off, she was holding a stick of sea-salt ice cream in her left hand, which Roxas had actually colored with a blue pen. He had just started drawing himself next to her, holding hands—he had put a lot of detail into the hands doing the holding.

Axel smiled and patted his friend on the shoulder. “Rox, I didn’t know you had it in you. This is amazing. You should show it to Xion when you’re done.”

Roxas nodded. “Yeah, I’m going to.”

Axel thought of something. “Actually, don’t show her tonight.”

“Huh? Why not?”

“There is a day specifically set aside for giving stuff to people you like the way you like Xion. It’s called Valentine’s Day, and it’s tomorrow.”

“Oh, yeah. I heard some kids in Twilight Town talking about it. I figured it out by listening to them.”

Axel blinked, then beamed. “You get smarter by the day, Rox. It makes me proud.”

“Yeah. I was thinking of giving her something else, too. Do you know anything she would like?”

Axel’s grin grew even bigger. “Roxas, I am going to help you do something you’ve been needing to do since the day you started getting nervous around her. It will involve seashells, string, one of Zexion’s books, two neddles, lots of sticky notes and Saix’s good graces. And it starts with me elaborating on an explanation I gave a while back…”

0=0=0=0=0=0

Roxas held the sea-salt blue seashell in his hands, inspecting it carefully. “This one should work. Give me the bag.”

Axel opened the bag, and the seashell dropped in, clinking and with the others as it landed. Roxas had looked at each one with the eye of a hawk, and they were only the most beautiful on the long stretch of beach around Destiny Islands. He wanted this to be special, and unusual perfectionism was very evident.

When Roxas recognized the first seashell he had rejected, he sighed. “That’s the last of them.” Then he blinked and turned to Axel. “Why are we doing this at midnight again?”

“Because Xion is asleep by then, and we want it to be a surprise.”

“Oh, right.”

0=0=0=0=0=0

“Zexion, do you still have _Knitting for Nobodies?”_

Zexion looked Axel in the eye, eyebrow raised. After a minute, he sighed and went back to his book. “Yes. You know where they are.”

Roxas pulled the book off the shelf. “Who wrote all these, anyway?”

Zexion didn’t look up from the book again. “Someone very wise and talented with far too much free time. Now get out.”

0=0=0=0=0=0

Roxas gawked as Axel attached the chains to the newly stitched uniform. “You could have told me you were good at knitting too! I would have saved a few hours.”

Axel shook his head. “It makes it more special if you do it yourself, Roxas. Now go make that necklace.”

0=0=0=0=0=0

That last part was the real reason Axel had started so early. He had a feeling this would take a while.

Saix had just started on paperwork when Axel came in and sat in the chair across from him. He didn’t even stop writing. “Impostor, you forgot to do your research. Axel wouldn’t wake up this early if I personally went to his room and threatened him with my claymore.”

“He would if he needed your help, Isa.”

“Pulling that again?” Saix sighed, still not stopping with the paperwork. “What did I do this time, Lea?”

“Nothing. I just said I need your help. I need you to send Xion on a special mission to Twilight Town.”

“And why would I alter the mission schedule to accommodate your whims?”

“Because Roxas has something very important to do, and it involves Xion.”

Saix finally threw his pencil on the table and looked up. “If this is about what I think it’s about, then you’re asking me to believe the impossible. Lea, I don’t care how much they’ve been holding each other and talking to each other and doing all manner of strange things around each other. They’re still Nobodies, just like you and me. Therefore, they are not capable of emotion. This is not speculation—it is fact, set in stone. It is the reason we continue to pursue Kingdom Hearts.”

“Isa, listen. I know we can’t feel. I don’t feel a thing right now, not really, just like always. But just because we can’t doesn’t mean they can’t, either. They’re weird, Isa. They’re weird, and that what makes them special.”

Saix stayed silent for a moment, then went back to his paperwork. “That would be a great line in a movie, but in real life, it has no effect on me whatsoever. I don’t approve of their… relationship, Lea. They’re kidding themselves. I’m not going to encourage them.”

Axel sighed and closed his eyes. “…Any way I could sweeten the deal?”

“By taking over the night shift from me for one week, and we all know that won’t—”

“It’s done.”

Saix looked up again. “You have no idea how hard my job is, do you?”

“I don’t care how hard it is. I want today to be the day of the Keybearers.”

Saix stared for a long moment. “…I’ll think about it.”

0=0=0=0=0=0

When Xion woke up that morning, she knew that today was going to be a good day. She didn’t know how she knew—she just _did._ She got that feeling from time to time, and it was usually accurate. It was a wonderful feeling.

Xion put on her uniform and walked to the Grey Room, practically skipping. When Demyx passed by in the hallway, she gave him a high-five, which took him by surprise and hit him in the face by accident. Xion cringed. “Sorry, Demyx.”

Demyx rubbed his face. “Oh, it’s all right. I’ll live. Feeling good today, girl?”

Xion giggled. “Yeah. And you don’t have to call me that. I’m not mad about you thinking I’m a boy anymore.”

Demyx smiled and put his hands on his hips. “Yeah, but Axel might be!”

“Good point!” Xion skipped off, leaving Demyx to wonder whether Axel really was watching his every move.

Xion entered the Grey Room and stood at attention in front of Saix, throwing in the usual cheerful salute. It took Saix a minute to notice her—he seemed to scrawling some notes on his clipboard. Xion waited patiently, still smiling. She wondered what was giving her the good feeling. She couldn’t stop thinking it had something to do with Roxas, but he had apparently already left. Maybe it was her new sleeping schedule.

Saix looked down at her. His face seemed just a little more resigned than usual. He sighed before speaking. “Xion, you have a… special mission in Twilight Town today. There have been reports of mysterious post-it notes being left around town. You are to investigate.”

Xion opened the dark corridor herself. “Yes, sir!”

As she left, Saix shook his head. “Number VIII,” he muttered to himself. “I _will_ find a way to punish you for making me sentimental…”

0=0=0=0=0=0

Roxas looked down from the clocktower at the town below, using binoculars to search for Xion. “Did you bring the ice cream?”

Axel held up the ice cooler. “No, I’m just using this for weightlifting. Got to keep up those muscles, you know…”

Roxas smiled and snuck an ice cream bar while Axel was still distracted with flexing his muscles (which weren’t exactly impressive—Axel had long, spindly arms, and made up for it with fire and chakrams). “This is going to be great.”

Axel nodded. “Yeah, it will be. I’ll be on the other side of the clocktower.”

“What? Why?”

Axel just grinned. “Because when the kids do something like this, the grown-ups need to stay out of the way.”

As Axel dark corridored down to the station, Roxas went back to searching. He noticed a black shimmering at the usual entry point, and zoomed in all the way.

There she was. Somehow, she looked even more beautiful than usual.

0=0=0=0=0=0

_XIV. Get ice cream that tastes of the sea. Tell the lady you’ve got someone to talk to, and that you need help finding him. –RX_

Well, it was probably worth a shot.

Xion went to the stand and put the munny on the counter. “Two sea-salt ice cream bars, please.”

The old woman in the stand smiled. “Two? Have a Valentine?”

Xion wondered what a Valentine was, but decided to ask Axel after the mission. “I have someone to talk to. Can you help me find him?”

Recognizing the apparent code phrase, the woman took two ice cream sticks and stuck a sticky note on one of them before handing them to Xion. “I’ll give you half off. Two for the price of one. It’s the Valentines special.”

While she still wasn’t quite sure what Valentine’s was, she thanked the woman and took the ice cream. She took the sticky note and read.

_XIV. Good job. Now, go to Pence and remind him about that hood he promised. Tell him the same thing you told the lady. Oh—and try not to throw anything at him this time. –RX_

Xion laughed. The good thing about her temper was that it cooled off fairly quickly, so she wasn’t mad at Pence anymore. She figured he probably didn’t remember her fondly, though.

She caught Pence walking down the street, all alone and looking a little down on himself. She waved. “Pence!”

The boy froze and turned around very slowly. “Xion… hi there…”

“Don’t worry! I’m sorry I threw things at you. I’m not mad anymore. I just came for the hood. I need to talk to someone.”

Pence fumbled with the pack he was carrying. “Oh, yeah, hold on…” He pulled out a large, wool coat. It looked a lot like the Organization uniform, but it was half blue and half white, and the cotton-ball ‘chains’ had small plastic bobs on the ends, painted with pictures of sea-salt ice cream. “Here. The hood will stay up. Oh, and take the sticky note, too.” Dropping the thing in Xion’s hands, he ran off without another word.

Xion decided instantly that she liked it. She read the note.

_XIV. I’m assuming that went well. Now come to the clocktower. Look for the one with blond hair. –RX_

The whole thing finally connected in her brain, and she beamed.

0=0=0=0=0=0

Roxas was pacing nervously. He had lost sight of Xion behind the buildings, and she was probably almost ready to come to the clocktower. He wondered if his hair looked right, something he had never thought about before. He also wondered if he smelled, even though Axel had taught him what deodorant was and he had applied a little too much of it beforehand.

He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. _I’ve made everything perfect,_ he told himself. _I’ve got this._

He opened his eyes just in time to see the girl that had invaded his dreams and plastered herself all over them step out onto the clocktower. When she saw him, she lit up in delight. “Roxas!”

Roxas smiled back. “Xion.”

Xion ran over and gave him a hug, making Roxas’ stomach feel like it was doing a flip. “You did all this for me?”

“Yeah. I kind of did. I also made the coat.”

“Wow! Thanks, this thing is amazing!”

Roxas reached into his coat and pulled out the drawing and seashell necklace. “I also made you these.”

Xion took the necklace and put it around her neck. “This is beautiful.”

“I made sure every shell was perfect.”

She looked at the drawing for a long moment, smiling the whole time. “Wow, you’re good at drawing!”

“It’s a talent I never knew I had. I started drawing because of you.”

Xion put the drawing in her coat and hugged Roxas again. “I can’t believe you did all this just for me. Why?”

Roxas took one last deep breath. “Remember what Axel said about love a while back?”

Xion looked him in the eyes, her own eyes and smile going wide. “You mean…”

“Xion… I think I love you.”

As the two Keybearers hugged each other even harder, Axel stood back and smiled. _I’m going to sound like an old man… ah, forget it. They grow up so fast._


	11. Chapter 11

_It’s so cold… Arendelle all over again… BANG—BANG—BANG… what was that?! KRA-KOW! KRA-KOW! KRA-KOW! What’s happening? What is that thing—oh, no, it’s coming for me… why can’t I summon my Keyblade… oh, no, I’m a Dusk, what did I do… no, no, no, NO…_

Xion shot up in bed, screaming. Pure, absolute terror gripped her. After a moment, she realized she was in her room. She patted herself down—she wasn’t a Dusk. She couldn’t get rid of the fear rationally, and reached for Thomas the Elephant and Bird the Penguin, holding them close and stroking their cotton ‘fur’. Her breath was shaky, as it always was when she was recovering from a panic attack.

Most of the time, Xion liked her dreams. They were usually either very calm and comforting or so weird it was hilarious. Occasionally, she even woke up laughing. Not tonight, though. She hadn’t liked that dream at all. She had heard Axel talking to Saix once about ‘bad dreams’, but she hadn’t thought such things were possible. Now she knew otherwise.

She gripped her stuffed animals tight. _It wasn’t real,_ she thought, trying to get herself to stop breathing the shaky breaths that only made her lightheaded. _It wasn’t real. Nothing can harm me here. I’m safe. It wasn’t real…_

After a few minutes spent regaining her composure (somewhat—at least she wasn’t breathing shaky), she looked at her clock. It was 1:17 AM. If she just stayed up, she would have felt like she had been through half a day by the time missions rolled around. She willed herself to lay her head on the pillow and close her eyes. Then, she saw fractured images from the dream, which her terrified imagination managed to make even scarier, and her eyes went open again. She wasn’t brave enough to close them again, so she just rolled face-first onto the pillow and hoped it would get her to sleep eventually.

It didn’t.

0=0=0=0=0=0

As Xion walked into the Grey Room, Saix looked up. “I keep telling you, Xion. You don’t have to wake up early.”

Xion raised her hand. “Can’t sleep,” she said groggily.

Saix started taking notes on his clipboard. Xion wasn’t looking too good. Her eyes were tinted red, and they kept drooping, but every time they closed, they snapped open again, as if she was forcing herself to keep them open. She also kept gasping every time the eyes closed, which couldn’t be good for her health. Saix did a quick assessment of his contingency plans for such a situation—he prepared for _everything_ —and decided to try something.

He put down his clipboard. “Would you… like a coffee?”

Xion nodded. “Yes, I think that would help.”

She hated coffee, especially the inedible black sludge the Organization had. Saix knew something was wrong. As he brewed the coffee, he considered his options. Xion couldn’t sit out a whole workday. Xemnas wanted Saix to pick up the pace a bit with Kingdom Hearts, what with the recent delay.

Saix brought the coffee out and laid it in front of Xion. She was finally keeping her eyes closed for an extended period, and for a moment, Saix hoped she had finally fallen asleep, but then her eyes shot open again, complete with gasp.

Saix held her on the shoulder lightly. “You have to stop doing that. It isn’t good for you.”

“Can’t stop myself.” Xion picked up the coffee and took a sip. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Saix closed his eyes, not believing what he was about to do. “Xion… what if I put Roxas on double duty and let you stay here today? You probably won’t be able to collect hearts effectively in this state.”

Xion blinked. “Really?”

“Yes. You need rest, and you need it now. Go back to your room and try to sleep, really try. If you still can’t sleep, you get the day off.”

“Wow… thank you.” She put down the coffee and trudged back to her room.

Saix sighed. “Axel, you get a Giant Heartless just for making me this sympathetic.”

0=0=0=0=0=0

That evening, Roxas was the first to return. If Xion wasn’t feeling well, then he was perfectly happy to do double duty for her. He had completed the missions as fast as he could, not bothering to fill the bonus gauge this time—he could always do a holo-mission later, and Xion came first.

When he returned, he practically sprinted up to Saix. “Is Xion okay?”

Saix did the usual exhalation, as if he had been anticipating this all day. “Okay, yes, fully awake, no. She’s been in her room all day. She’s had a few micro-sleeps, but she’s only marginally better. She’ll probably be fine tomorrow, though.”

“Can I see her?”

“I doubt she wants to be disturbed.”

“She always wants to see me, Saix. Always.”

Saix stood over him for a long moment, giving him a skeptical look. “…Fine, then. If she tells you to leave, then leave.”

Roxas nodded and ran towards Xion’s room. He just managed to stop himself from bursting in loudly. He gave the door a few test knocks, hoping she was awake enough to hear them.

After a tense moment, he heard her voice, though it was bleary and soft. “Who is it?”

“Roxas.”

Xion’s voice got a little more pleasant. “Come in. Please, I’ve been wanting to see you all day…”

Roxas opened the door slowly. Xion was wrapped up in her blanket like a burrito. She was smiling at him, but she didn’t look well at all otherwise.

Roxas crouched down next to the bed and stroked her hair gently. “You feeling okay?”

Xion shook her head. “Not really. I had a bad dream last night.”

“A… bad dream?”

“Yeah. I didn’t think it was possible, either. It keeps coming back, every time I close my eyes.”

Roxas bit his lip. “Did you tell Saix?”

“No. All he knows is that I can’t sleep. I don’t want him to know.”

“Should I tell Axel when he gets back?”

She sighed. “I don’t want to bother him with something that isn’t real.”

“Not real?” Roxas laid his hand on her cheek. “Xion, this is real. The way you’re feeling, this—”

“Stop it.”

“Huh?”

“I know what you mean, but…” She sighed. “It makes the dream feel more real when you say that.”

Roxas nodded. “Is there any way I can help?”

“…Tell me a story.”

Roxas blinked. He was not exactly a master storyteller. Heck, most days it was Xion telling the stories. He racked his brain, then thought of something, a technique he had learned observing a Twilight Town mother and her baby.

With a sigh of his own, Roxas began. “Once upon a time, there was a girl named Xion. She lived in a big castle and fought Heartless. She was pretty good at it. One night, she didn’t sleep well, and her best friend Roxas came to tell her a story. And he said, ‘once upon a time, there was a girl named Xion…’”

It did the trick. After a few rounds, she drifted back to sleep, smiling. He checked the clock—it was 5:30. He would have left at this point, but somehow, the sight of Xion wrapped up in the blanket, smiling that cute little smile and snoring that cute little snore, made him want to stay.

0=0=0=0=0=0

Saix held Axel’s arm as he started to walk away. “You’ll have to skip your ice cream today. Xion isn’t feeling well.”

Axel spun around. “What? What happened?”

“Ask Roxas, he was watching her half an hour ago. Still watching her, if I’ve been observant enough.”

Without another word, he went over to Xion’s room and opened the door. Roxas turned around and put a finger to his lips. Axel nodded and walked over, crouching down next to him and looking at Xion. He couldn’t see her face, but she was just as cute with her head buried in the pillows. The hair made her head look like a ball of fluff.

Axel turned to Roxas. “What happened?”

Roxas shook his head. “She doesn’t want me to tell you.”

Adrenaline started rising up as Axel assumed the worst. “Can you at least tell me who to burn, then?”

More headshaking. “No, no one did anything to her, otherwise you would have found them beaten to a pulp by my Keyblade.”

Axel smiled and patted Roxas’ head. “That’s my boy. You’re starting to pick up my protective habits.”

Roxas rubbed Xion’s hair. “She’s all I really think about anymore. No matter what, she always comes first. Is that what love is?”

“Yup. That’s exactly what it is. You put the person you love ahead of anyone else, including yourself.”

“Then I like love.” Roxas patted Xion one more time and turned back to Axel. “Should I watch her?”

“No. You need your own rest, Rox. I’ll watch her.”

Roxas nodded and kissed Xion lightly on the head before reluctantly leaving the room. Axel sighed. Things like that confused him to no end. To him, this still felt like a close friendship, not love. He was starting to believe Nobodies actually could feel, just not as much as Somebodies, and didn’t even rule out familial love,  but the kind of love Roxas was feeling still failed the reality check for him. He had had girlfriends himself when he was Roxas’ age—well, apparent age. He remembered what that kind of love felt like, and it was way too strong even for his new theory.

 _Maybe,_ he thought to himself, not daring to say it aloud. _They aren’t Nobodies at all._

0=0=0=0=0=0

_“Number XIV, you have failed too many times. I will no longer tolerate your blatant incompetence.”_

_I’m on my knees, begging. “Superior, please, give me another chance!”_

_“I’ve given you enough chances as it is. I am done with you.”_

_He’s raising his hand… no, no, this can’t be happening… what did I do, everything was perfect, what did I do… I don’t want to be a dusk… it’s too cold, it’s too loud… nononononono NO!_

For the second time in two nights, Xion woke up screaming. There was a man lying on the floor next to her, which made her shriek even louder. The man got up, yelling something she knew she wasn’t supposed to say until she was older, and summoned chakrams. The chakrams made her notice the spiky hair, and she realized it was just Axel. She covered her mouth to stop herself from screaming more.

Axel looked around, searching for any sign of an intruder, then put the chakrams away and held Xion by the shoulders. “What happened, Xion? You can tell me.”

“I…” Xion looked at the bed. “It wasn’t real… I don’t want to bother you if it wasn’t real…”

“Did you have a bad dream?”

She blinked. “How did you…”

“I’ve had a few. I know what they look like.” Axel hugged her. “Listen, it’s not real, but it _feels_ real, and that’s why it’s scary. You can always tell me about the things that scare you.”

She buried her head in his chest. “Can you make me not afraid?”

“I don’t know, but I can try.”

She practically latched onto Axel. “I’m afraid of getting dusked.”

“That will never happen. I’ll make sure it never happens. I’d be willing to give my life to make sure it didn’t happen. Always remember that.”

“I’m afraid of loud noises.”

“It’s just sound. The noises can’t hurt you. And even if they could, they’d have to go through me.”

“Ever since Arendelle, I’ve been afraid of the cold.”

“I’ll always keep you warm.”

Xion was crying now, but at the same time, she was starting to feel better. “I’m afraid of failing.”

“One failure isn’t going to ruin everything. Just get up and keep moving.”

“I’m afraid of being alone.”

“You’ll never be alone, not forever. That’s because I’m always here.”

“I’m afraid of the things I don’t know.”

“Everyone is. But do you know what the things you don’t know are scared of?”

“What?”

“Me. Because if they dare to hurt you, then they’ll have to talk to me, which will really suck for them.”

Xion ran out of tears. She was feeling a lot better, but she still had one more thing. “And now I’m afraid of sleeping.”

“Don’t be. You can sleep.” He hugged her tight. “Because I’m here.”

Xion could feel her body getting heavy, random thoughts hijacking her brain, just the way she always felt falling asleep. “I know I’m a Nobody… but I still love you.”

As she drifted off, she could just barely hear Axel whispering in her ear. “Then I love you back.”


End file.
